Tuesday, July 31, 2012

It is my personal belief that when someone such as newspaper
Editors, and other people given space such as Dave Stancliff, and
apparently the new opinionatorThe Reverend Eric Duff are obligated
to use that space for words of truth, honesty and value. In other
words, write about subject matter that's important and substantive to
the local reader. I had almost given up on Dave Stancliff when I
noticed the face and name of The Reverend Eric Duff'sFrom
Time To Time writings appearing more and more on a regular basis.
His latest is, “Fracking's effects to be felt globally.”

I don't know if Reverend Duff's articles had a positive influence
on Dave or not, but I finally got my worthwhile article last Sunday,
July 29, 2012, titled: Rhetoric and reality follow movie massacre. What he writes about is
pertinent and substantive. I honestly believe there just might be
some hope for that man yet. One of the biggest problems people have,
and my interactions with Dave revealed this issue, is that what
people do and what they say, never the twain do meet.

To
explain, when I decided to compliment Dave on his progress I began by looking for a current picture that would define the article and came
across this picture above at the following link posted June 28, 2012, under: (Hope he doesn't mind reprinting it here.)

AS IT STANDS: An attempt to explain a
column that doesn’t really have a category

Good
Day Humboldt County!

I was
talking newspapers with a guy, while waiting in a long line the other
day, when I mentioned that I wrote a column for The Times-Standard.
He asked what kind of column did I write?

After
hesitating a moment I said, “An opinion column.” But my answer
seems incomplete in retrospect, because I didn’t
always opine about things.
Sometimes I tell stories about people and animals.
I’ve also been known to examine physical and mental
conditions, along with humorous and satirical takes on life.

As It
Stands is a combination of a poor man’s YOU INSERT YOUR FAVORITE
SYNDICATED NEWSPAPER COLUMNIST HERE, and now retired, Gary Larson’s,
Far Side comic strip. I like to write about odd and weird things
whenever possible.

I do
enjoy getting up on my bully pulpit to protest corruption wherever I
see it. I only take stands on subjects that I strongly believe in.
Probably the best thing about my column is I write about anything I
want to! With a wide variety of subjects explored, I’m bound to
pick up some regular readers, whose comments, by the way, keep me
writing.

Longtime
readers know that I’m a retired newspaper editor & publisher,
and a Vietnam veteran with PTSD
that doesn’t get out of the house too often. If it wasn’t for the
World Wide Web, I would have lost contact with the outside world a
long time ago. This blog, and my column,
give me two more reasons to get up in the morning.

As It
Stands, there’s so many new things to write about every day, it
really helps chase boredom away! (Emphasis added)

While his take on subject matter is
dependent upon his definitions of value and substance, my question is
does what he write “pass HIS smell test”? In other words does
his writings produce the product he says he's making? This is what Dave
says to everyone that come to his blog: “WELCOME TO AS IT STANDS.
WE ALL HAVE OPPORTUNTIES (sic) IN LIFE TO TAKE NEW PATHS, AND TO EXPLORE
NEW IDEAS. THIS BLOG OFFERS THE READER A CHANCE TO WALK DOWN NEW
ROADS. I LIVE IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY. JOIN ME EACH DAY TO GO ON A NEW
PATH WITH STORIES AND 0PINIONS THAT WILL STIMULATE YOUR MIND.” (Emphasis added)

As someone that Dave contested with for
a period of time over the issue of mind stimulation, let see how he
does next Sunday. Lets all hope he keeps up the good work and continues with relevant and pertinent thought provoking subject matter.

So, in Dave's words, “NOW, IT'S TIME FOR ME TO
WALK ON DOWN THE ROAD...”

When I read his
comments on “American Democracy” I was reminded how his article
was more of an indictment of the propagandized, indolent American
Voter. He says the country needs “real leadership, but doesn't see
it coming from either side of the aisle.” That's because, while he is right about the need, the problem isn't Democrat or Republican
elected politicians, it is the people that do NOT want real leaders.
A good example of that is what we've got right here in Eureka with
the so-called “Interim” Chief of Police, Murl Harpham. We find
out today that the people of Eureka made sure they kept and protected
that 78 year old reprobate in office, putting aside the hiring of a
new Chief of Police like they made everyone think they were doing, to
make him a full fledged Chief so he can finish and establish his
legacy in grand style. (See, "Eureka drops police chief hiring process; 'interim' to be dropped from Chief Harpham's title as city looks to fill post next year." Yeah! With a fine Murl Harpham protege. A sad day on Humboldt Bay.

People get the Democracy they want, even when
their voting for two Monarchies and their representative Kings they
dutifully call President.

[UPDATE :: Monday, August 20, 2012]

Short-Lived

I guess the past three weeks must of over-taxed our resplendent
Opinionator's little gray cells. Sunday, August 19, 2012,
waste-of-space “Contemporary art – it's not for everyone”
pushes the limit when there are serious local issues that need to be
aired out like Friday's headline reporting the latest coup by the
Eureka One Percenters: “Eureka drops police chief hiring process
– 'Interim' to be dropped from Chief Harpham's title as city
looks to fill post nest year.” The push for a Harpham protégérolls on.

But, alas! Such serious, pertinent and relevantly LOCAL issues are
NOT a topic for discussion in the As It Stands world. Dave candidly talks about the need for leaders and leadership. Well Dave, here's your golden opportunity. Why don't you make the most of it?

Friday, July 27, 2012

[UPDATE Below] [UPDATE II :: Natural consequence: "Why don't American oligarchs fear the consequences of their corruption, and how can that be changed?"]

Totalitarians thrive in the dark. They
operate in the dark realms of the voodoo believers. Force people to
operate on superstitions, mythological traditions, or secular
religious cults in one form or another, call them political parties or
organizations and you easily control the general population. That is, as long as the "common man and woman" believes they have some relevant say in matters.

So the priority is to keep people in
ignorance if they can't keep information silenced. In the computer
and Internet age where there is widespread travel, movies and
television this has become rather difficult. In America, specially
after World War Two, college and university education came to the
low-class masses in America – predominantly the men. It then became
their goal to see their children go to college and upgrade their status in society. Problem was, the
education their children were getting, to a large extent, contradicted their
propagandistic brainwashed beliefs the war had forced upon them, so what to do. Information of any
kind doesn't benefit anyone if they can't think. That required changing their priority from thinking motivated people to believing motivated people. All they had to do
was make their children believe they were worthless individuals
unable to think for themselves. Make them believe that whatever they
thought or believed, whatever ideas they came up with equal to any
adult was worthless nonsense. Fortunately, this sickness that
pervades America and the World didn't afflict everyone. You can
always tell who these sick McCarthyites are.

The first thing the totalitarian type
does is attack dissenters, disbelievers or thinking people
personally. Their attacks start out with the usual lying accusations
of an emotional issue denigrating the legitimacy of your right or
ability to any kind of worthwhile or valid idea, statement, or
belief, i.e., “you're angry,” “you're sick,” or in extreme
cases, “you're crazy.” In Russia they promptly shipped such
people off to Siberia by the millions for “indoctrination” of their sickness
– not agreeing. In America, they put you in the nether
world of rejected silence, a place of nonexistence – the Siberian
equivalent.

America is blessed with an interesting
phenomenon, some might even say paradox, in that those championing
and defending all American's inherent right to their personal
freedoms of expression and religion against such tyrannical
Communistic or Socialist censorship are the strongest defenders of
it. Senator Joe McCarthy was a good example of this.

“Today the term (McCarthyism) is used more generally in reference to demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character and/or patriotism of political opponents.”

Which we see utilized and enforced on a regular basis in these Internet blogs. What's paradoxical about such McCarthyite defenders of freedom are the very people you'd least expect. President Barck Obama is a good example. Glenn Greenwald speaks to this issue in his article, “Most likely to attack Iran.”

“ ***
Obama — by leading progressives and Democrats to support his
embrace of Bush/Cheney Terrorism and civil liberties policies — was
doing more to entrench those once-controversial policies as
bipartisan consensus than Bush and Cheney themselves could ever have
dreamt of doing.”

Of recent date, another one of these
people has begun or at least tried to incite a similar Joe McCarthy
mentality, some might say spirit, into my participation on blogs
where he writes and makes comments. It's probably the very last
person in Humboldt County you would expect, too. Here's an example of
the latest:

Eric
Kirk said
23 hours ago: Again
Joe posts his default response to any news about the body politic.
Again Joe, we know you think it’s all bullshit, and there are some
posters who agree with you. But don’t you get tired of typing the
same stuff over and over again?

Seems innocent or innocuous enough of a comment to say that all anyone posts is repetitious bullshit not fit to read. But then, look who is doing to talking. It is in this arrogant, self-righteous attitude that the roots of bigotry, bias, prejudice, and hatred live and feed.

Mind-numbing “body politic.” Local political junky and rhetorical propaganda enabler shows the way to what Glenn Greenwald explains in his latest article: Extremism normalized. If you want to know the root cause of what Greenwald is exposing, go no further than Eric Kirk's blog, SoHum Parlance II and his posts on the Humboldt Herald blog. Tune into the Comment Section and prepare to become inundated with boredom. It's comparable to those old science classes where everyone was forced to dissect for the umpteenth time those rotten smelling bullfrogs.

[UPDATE II :: Wednesday, August 1, 2012]
No fear. When I communicate with the likes of an Eric Kirk, a practicing lawyer in Humboldt County, the one constant that impressed me was his cavalier approach to the horrendous consequences descending upon the people of this country, including right here where we all live. Glenn Greewald puts it this way in his article: Chris Hayes on elite failure.

I see no evidence that “rich people are very, very afraid” — at least not by their actions. And that, to me, is the problem. That fear — a lot more of it — is necessary. Their ability to rope themselves off from the society they are degrading, combined with the para-militarization of domestic police forces (aggressively displayed in response to the Occupy movement and related protests), and the rapidly increasing domestic powers of surveillance and detention (designed to intimidate the citizenry and thus deter and guard against mass protests), have convinced them, I think, that they need not fear any protest movements or social unrest, that America can and will become more and more of a police state to suppress it. An elite class that is free to operate without limits — whether limits imposed by the rule of law or fear of the responses from those harmed by their behavior — is an elite class that will plunder, degrade, and cheat at will, and act endlessly to fortify its own power.

The problem for these Fearless Fosdicks is that "nothing is ever as it seems" and they're in for a big surprise.

Saturday, July 14, 2012

What's going on with the Times-Standard's Opinion Page? It's bad
enough that most of the news is canned Spam, and that the local news
is mostly regurgitated press releases. To know what the featured
national opinionators have to say, all that is required is to read one
of their opinion pieces. Then the next time you see their name or names, you just pass them by since you already know what they are going to say. No originality, no imagination, no substance, nothing more than the same old self-justifying "talking points." The same is true of the ONLY local
opinion writer, Dave Stancliff and his pablum filled As It
Stands articles that dominates a half page of every Sunday
Edition. That is until another face kept showing up on a regular basis
taking up the My Word portions of the paper with his wordy
nothingness. This is the Reverend Eric Duff, an "Episcopal priest and
licensed clinical social worker." Just what we need, another "priest" telling everyone what to believe – indoctrinating every reader in the Editor's theological social rote.

My Word opinions are considered “Guest Editorials” by the
paper. The newspaper say that: “My Words of 500-700 word are
reserved for regional issues and related items of high local
interest.” It doesn't take long to tell when reading some of these
My Word commentaries that meeting this standard: “regional issues
and related items of high local interest” resides ONLY in the “eye
of the beholder.” In other words, as a “guest editorial”
whatever you write must meet the same criteria as the newspaper's
Editor or whoever it is that is responsible for the paper's
editorial.

So, good luck getting something published if what you have say is
both of a “regional issue” and or a related item of “high
local interest.” All the newspaper cares about is filling
their pages with gobbledy gook. You know what “gobbledy gook” is,
don't you? Here's a good example I pulled at random out of my stack
of old papers: “What exactly happened to everybody's sense of
humor?” Seems like a substantive and criteria-meeting “item of
high local interest,” right? Read the article and you see he has
made his point, no one can talk to anyone today without committing
some form of crime – let alone “make a joke.” Got a problem
with your neighbor? You can get arrest for simply approaching him or
her and asking them what their problem is? They just MIGHT FEEL
threatened – a serious crime anymore. Never you mind that your
neighbor ACTUALLY threatens to physically harm you, your family or
property; a crime in any country. So, what was his solution? I guess
he is following the newspaper editor's solution and directs
everyone to the “other” always “entertaining” comedian, Dave
Stancliff. (See the As It Stands: “Who would you like to have lunchor dinner with?”)

Since getting some of my priorities reorganized, I haven't spent
much time reading As It Stands opinion. I do check him out and most
always scan (speed read) through his commentaries. I really don't have much time
to spend on someone as proven able and astute as Dave Stancliff when
he spends or wastes his gift (a weekly, Sunday column) and talent
writing about nonsense, always patting himself on the back and calling it
and himself “entertaining.” Sadly, it seems, the same thing is
happening to The Rev. Eric Duff's From Time To Time
columns as well. His latest, “Humboldt happiness: It's in the air”
really stretches the imagination to see how what he says is “an item
of high local interest.” More like juvenile pablum served up by a hollow, empty, small-minded “newspaper” editor.

The problem is, these people, Dave Kuta, Kimberly Wear or Marc
Valles DO NOT publish letters or My Word editorials that are relevant
and substantive, in place of filling their pages status quo or
standard “entertainment.” But then, no one would know anything
about that, would you. They just quietly file such commentaries in
the trash. What we need is someone with the guts and cojones that is
adult enough to stand up to the substantive issues facing our
community – what it actually takes to start talking to and about
one another's juvenile conduct.

My problem with all of this Good Ol' Boy Club stuff is that we all
know how it works in the “real” world of politics and business controlled by the 1%.
In times past everyone believed that newspapers at least tried to
stay above that corruption. Well, some of them did anyway. Here, with
the Times-Standard you've got the one and only “retired editor”
and a club of would-be “editors” vying for your attention. Check
out some of the local blogs and you'll find the same Good Ol' Boy's Club practicing and engaging in the same kind ofingratiating, self-serving stroking. So read on for whatever it is worth.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Was that the vote at the ballot box the 1,450 caregivers made when
they voted for the current crop of County Supervisors? Or was it the
vote some of the more wealthy property owners made with their dollar
election support?

“Negotiators for the county's In-Home Supportive Services
workers -- who help aged, blind and disabled individuals remain in
their own homes -- have been petitioning the county for increased
wages. Care workers currently make minimum wage -- set at $8 an hour
-- and don't receive any benefits.”

And this is what it says about the benefits for private
landowners:

“The board voted 5-0 to accept new applications this year,
allowing the county to enter into contracts with private landowners
as a way to restrict land use to agricultural or preservation
purposes. Participating landowners receive lower property tax
assessments.”

County Supervisor priority speaks loud and clear. The picture caption of the Bulldog on the same page probably says it all about what your vote gets you – Whatta dog!

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About Me

Joe Blow was a nobody. Still is, for that matter. Somewhere in Eureka, California is his home. From there he shares some irreverent and less temperate observations about the community of which he resides. About truth, justice and sustainable human development.

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